Free Creatures of the Storm by Brad Munson Page B

that.”
    Cindy Bergstrom was gazing at her from under
her cap of curls, still looking like a well-whipped dog. Rebecca
Falmouth-Hanson was almost glowing with ready-to-serve sympathy.
Fender, as usual, did not seem entirely clear on what had just
happened. And Michael Steinberg was doing his best not to laugh out
loud.
    He was the first to break
the silence. “I’ll be in my lab if anyone needs to check up on me,”
he said. Then he turned on his heel and sauntered out of the room.
The swinging door shut behind him with a flatulent whuff .
    It was as if his exit caused an audible pop,
and suddenly everybody was moving, looking busy, coming towards
her, talking at once.
    “What will we–”
    “That cop was such a–”
    “—got this rain gear from–”
    “Stop it,” she said, putting up her hands.
Everyone kept talking and bustling around the room. “STOP IT!” she
shouted... and they froze, all of them, and stared at her
again.
    She took a deep breath. “Give me one of the
parkas,” she said to Cindy. “I’m going to walk Fender back
home.”
    Cindy held one out to her. It was yellow and
shiny as a schoolgirl’s slicker. “I’d be glad to do it, it’s
no–”
    “No. Thank you. I could use
the walk.” Lucy nodded at Rebecca without looking her in the face.
She couldn’t bear to see the moist-eyed pity she knew was waiting
there. Big Boss gets ignored by the
cop , she thought. Big Boss ain’t so big after all .
    She motioned to the confused long-hair. “Come
on, Fender,” she said. “Let’s go.”
    “’Kay,” he said, and put his head through a
cowhide poncho that made him look like a badly dressed Guernsey.
“Comin’ atcha.” They pushed through the door together, and ducked
against the wet wind that tried to push them back again.
    The trip from the Station parking lot up the
cement staircase to the highway was usually a quick and easy climb.
Even Lucy could take two steps at a time on a regular day. Now, in
the gathering darkness, with the wind and rain lashing at them from
all sides, it was a slow and careful slog, one riser at a time with
both hands gripping the cold, wet banisters fashioned from one-inch
pipe.
    They paused when they reached the yellowed
gravel of the highway’s shoulder, already weary.
    “Totally insane!” Fender shouted into her
ear. All Lucy could do was nod in agreement, and momentarily
appreciate the smell of good dope and bad oral hygiene that came
from him in a warm burst.
    There was a sudden flash of blue-white light
high and to the right. They both looked up as the first blast of
thunder struck them like a fist. They staggered back, half in
surprise, half from the actual force of it. They watched together,
dumbfounded, as lightning struck the ridge to the north again. When
the second thunder-roll hit, it struck again, a little farther to
the south...and again…and again.
    They stood in the pouring rain for five full
minutes watching the lightning travel down the Valle in an almost
straight north-to-south line, striking at rock outcroppings, trees,
buildings, each strike a little farther from them than the last.
The entire town was lit by a burst of sterile blue illumination
with each arc. From where they stood, it looked like a slide show
of stark black-and-white photographs, a serial portrait of a small
American town in the midst of drowning. Lucy was distantly
surprised that the Water Tower, Dos Bros’ tallest structure – sheet
steel filled with water, no less – was somehow spared a strike. She
assumed it was well-insulated and equally well-grounded, but
still.
    They couldn’t make themselves move. In spite
of the wind and rain, they waited until the electrical storm
finally collapsed in a web of lightning-strikes on the VeriSil
campus, far to the south, half a mile from the bald, shadowy twin
peaks of The Brothers. When the light flickered away and the
thunder fell to an ominous grumble, Lucy forced herself forward.
“Come on,” she said. There were